Friday, 2 January 2009

The Birds

Today's blog entry is a game of 'Spot the Blackbird'. There's no prizes, and I've made it very easy by highlighting the birds in the picture.

All rather pointless you might think, but there is a good reason for posting this (frankly rather poor) image, and that reason is a plea for untidiness in the garden.

Over the last few weeks this area of our neighbours garden has been home to literally dozens of birds, all feasting greedily on the rotting Bramley Apples which litter the ground. At any one moment there have been up to 20 Blackbirds, either on the ground pecking, or perched overlooking this welcome Winter food reserve. Recent cold weather has made things difficult for our overwintering birds, the ground has frozen, berries and bugs are now in much shorter supply, so a pile of rotting apples attracts great interest from our feathered friends.

The village orchard is another happy hunting ground for birdlife, and I'm pleased to see that many of the other apple trees in the village have been left relatively untidied. As for our own small orchard, well this has been largely cleared of debris by the even greedier hens. Karen has become adept at creating 'hen-proof feeding stations' for the smaller birds, though it's a bit like trying to keep the Squirrels off the bird feeders, a constant battle of wits, a battle the poultry all too often win!